Paul Haschak

Kathy Wheeler Electronic Services Librarian

In December, the University Libraries went through an upgrade to our catalog software. Several new features were added that affect the public catalog.

1. Searches can be quickly limited by location on the Simple Search screen
2. Searching terms that consist of more than one word no longer requires the use of quotation marks around the terms: eating disorders is a perfectly acceptable search phrase.
3. Keyword searching sorts by relevance and automatically adds the AND Boolean operator between two terms. For example, a Keyword AND with Relevance search using the two words “eating disorders” is really this search: eating and disorders
4. This relevance search sorts by the number of times it finds a word in a record. You have the option of sorting your results list by Publication Date – Most Recent First using SOUTHcat’s sort feature if you wish.
5. An Advanced Boolean Search option allows you to do more complicated searches such as: (math? and women) and history
6. Truncation can be at the end or the middle of a word: wom?n or encyclo?
7. Library of Congress and MESH subject headings may be searched by keyword
8. There is no need to go back to the beginning search screen if you decide to modify your search; a search bar appears on every results list page
9. Online renewal includes the ability to renew all items at one time instead of checking each individual box – underneath Charged Items there is a drop-down menu that allows you to choose to Renew Checked Items or to Renew all items from University of South Alabama Libraries

Academic Research Center

Richard Wood
Dean of the Libraries

A general purpose computer lab—referred to as the Academic Research Center (ARC)—should open by February 15, 2007 in Room 128 of the University Library. The ARC is conveniently located at the west entrance of the library and will house fourteen workstations for students of the University of South Alabama to use. The purpose of the lab is to give students the ability to integrate online academic materials into presentations or papers, complete other academic assignments requiring those applications, as well as the ability to view online lectures, print class notes, and use course related CD-ROMs or DVDs, etc. Students will also be able to e-mail Word documents or Excel spreadsheets to their professors, or print such attachments sent to them.
The workstations will be configured identical to the CIS labs, SouthPaw lab, and other general purpose labs running DeepFreeze—they will have MS Word, MS Excel, and MS PowerPoint. The hours of the Academic Research Center will parallel those of the University Library itself and generally be open a half-hour after the library opens and closed one hour prior to closing of the library. Users will be able to print articles or documents to either one of the two high speed digital (networked) printers located in front of the circulation desk. Printing will require the use of the University Library’s TRACcard system. Students will be required to show their USA identification card in order to use the ARC and a student assistant will be available for limited assistance. The lab will not be used for scheduled classes, workshops, or similar activities so that it is always available for easy access by individual students.

ARTSTOR

Jan Sauer Instructional Services Librarian

The Library has subscribed to a database made up entirely of images "covering art, architecture and archeology." This is an art teacher's dream; no more slides and slide projectors needed. If the name sounds familiar it's because ARTSTOR is a cousin to JSTOR. Starting as a Mellon grant, this project attempts to consolidate collections of "architecture, painting, photography, sculpture, decorative arts and design, as well as archeological and anthropological objects, and visual and material culture more generally" in one place. It just loaded its 500,000th image in October. Its purpose is to facilitate teaching, curating and scholarly work. The images are available for fair use web presentations, but are not of print quality and their use is restricted to teaching and "student papers, theses, and dissertations (provided the dissertations are not distributed widely)." If one wants to use the images in a presentation ArtSTOR provides a free downloadable presentation program to which the images and their associated information can be saved, but one must register to use this feature. Try it under the alphabetical list of Articles, Indexes, Databases on the Univ. Libraries' homepage. Turn off any pop-up blocker your browser may have activated. This is not an easy database to use in an advanced mode, but one that is worth it if you are at all interested in the art and visual wisdom of human history.

What is NAAL? And What Does It Do for You?

Dr. Sue Medina
Director of the Network of Alabama Academic Libraries

The Network of Alabama Academic Libraries is a member-governed consortium of Alabama’s public and non-profit private four-year colleges and universities. Since 1984, these institutions have collaborated to share academic library resources to assure that every student and researcher obtains the information needed for a successful educational experience. Their vision and planning focus on developing innovative programs for the efficient, effective, and economical use of Alabama’s limited resources. One of NAAL’s most successful programs is negotiating discounted pricing for licensed electronic content. In addition, NAAL has received federal grants to improve interlibrary loan and document delivery, seamlessly link library systems to share databases, create a publicly-accessible text and image database of unique materials about Alabama history <http//www.alabamamosaic.org>, and to develop a distributed archive for the long term storage of digital files to protect them from loss in the event of natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, tornados, and fires. (http://www.ache.state.al.us/NAAL)

One of the first programs adopted by NAAL was to deliver the books and journals articles that its members borrowed from each other. To meet NAAL’s mission, the librarians had to develop an efficient and effective delivery system for their resource sharing program. An early “interlibrary loan turnaround time” study found that NAAL’s ILL packages averaged two weeks for delivery via the postal service. This was unacceptable, and the member libraries adopted strategies to improve delivery. Today, NAAL is proud that most items requested via interlibrary arrive within two days of the request. By comparison, national averages for ILL turnaround time still approach two weeks. How do NAAL libraries maintain this remarkable service benchmark.

1.  ILL department efficiency: Every NAAL library examined its ILL operations and streamlined its processes.  Every NAAL library seeks to ship any item available for circulation on the same day the item is requested by a NAAL library. 

2.  Electronic transmission of copies: One of NAAL’s first federal grants (FY1989) funded fax machines for libraries to transmit photocopies of journal articles. When technology enabled scanned materials to be sent via the Internet, NAAL funded ARIEL Document Delivery Workstations for each ILL department. With these workstations, the lending library sends digital copies of journal articles over the Internet.  The requesting library can print articles for delivery to the user—or if allowed by the publisher, even send the digital copy via email to the user.  NAAL’s record for receipt of an ILL article is 25 minutes after the library requested it! NAAL’s average is for requesting libraries to receive transmitted articles within 24 hours---still a remarkable turnaround time.

3. Quickly deliver packages of ILL books: While electronic transmission rapidly delivered photocopied journal articles, books still required physical delivery.  To speed delivery, NAAL contracts with UPS for package delivery.  In FY06, NAAL spent $78,012 for package delivery services to deliver books for interlibrary lending among its members. The NAAL contract with UPS delivers borrowed books to the requesting libraries and also returns them after use to the lending library. In FY06, UPS delivered 15,549 packages between NAAL libraries and reported that 96% were delivered by the next day; 99.9% by the second day. About half of the NAAL members lend enough books to qualify for daily pick-up service--at a cost to NAAL of $16 per week per site. The remaining members use any campus UPS pick-up site but charge the package cost to NAAL. 

The University Library of the University of South Alabama lends enough books to qualify for daily pick-up service by UPS. The Baugh Biomedical Library does not lend as many books as journal articles so it bills UPS package charges to NAAL but uses the campus UPS pick-up site. The NAAL FY06 expenditure for the University Library (including the $16 weekly pick-up fee) was $5,642.59 to ship 1,179 ILL packages to other NAAL members.

100 Greatest American Movies (AFI)

Kathy Jones & Trevor Elmore

In 2006 the American Film Institute (AFI) announced the 100 Greatest American Movies of all time. The University Library’s Instructional Media Center has a copy of every title on the list. Students in courses such as CA 343: Film History, CA 344: Film and Television Genres, EH 280: Horror and EH 478: Studies in Film have been able to use this collection of media titles to support their course work. Use of our media collection is not limited to support of class assignments. All students and faculty of the University may check out media from the Library’s Instructional Media Center. Check the list to see if there are titles you missed seeing or to see if a personal favorite is listed. The IMC collection is located on the First Floor, North side in the University Library.
http://www.usouthal.edu/univlib/news/news31/100films.html